


Moira O'Deorain - Reanimator

by RedundantHarpoons



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Moira's Not a Good Person - Angela's Not Great Either, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-05-28 18:10:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15054872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedundantHarpoons/pseuds/RedundantHarpoons
Summary: A tale from Angela's past could shed some light on just what's become of Gabriel Reyes, though she's . . .hesitantto share it.She's not proud of the mistakes she made in her youth.





	1. From the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> One of the first pieces of art I saw when entering the fandom was [this image of Moira,](https://twitter.com/YAOwww0/status/926810938715471872?ref_src=twcamp%5Eshare%7Ctwsrc%5Em5%7Ctwgr%5Eemail%7Ctwcon%5E7046%7Ctwterm%5E3) and the more I learned about her as a character, and Angela as well, the more I wanted someone to write this fic, or draw art of it. I can't draw, but I can sort of write, so here it is.

I know that this is . . . all very difficult for you. I care about you, and I know what it is to—well, to  _wonder_ about what’s become of someone you care for. And so I’m going to tell you the truth, but please, Jack, let it stay here, in this room, between us. No files, no recordings.

I’ve . . . never told anyone else about all of this, for reasons I’m sure will be abundantly clear by the end of it all. It’s not a happy story, and I am not proud of what I’ve done, of what I was party to. But please,  _know that_. Know that it was long ago, and it was not the me you know now. If you are the friend I know you to be, you will not think ill of me when all is said and done.

It happened, or at least it began, before we came to Overwatch. Long before, by most definitions you could still call me a child. Fifteen. I probably shouldn’t have been at university alone, or at the very least left to make so many unsupervised decisions. Perhaps I wouldn’t have gotten into this mess if I’d had more guidance. But unfortunately people often mistake intelligence for wisdom, and most thought I was capable enough to pursue my degree on my own.

Moira had already been at the university for some time, she had recently begun at the medical school. No, she’s not a medical doctor, and there’s good reason why.

I’m not sure what she saw in me. I liked to think, and still hope, that it was that I was intelligent and capable, I showed promise as a doctor. Sometimes I think maybe she was lonely. God knows I was. Imagine being fifteen years old at a university. You’re not old enough to be taken seriously by even your youngest peers, you’re treated like a child by everyone. It was nice, that she didn’t treat me like a child. I like to think she thought I was capable. I like to think she was lonely, and we both needed a friend. Sometimes, though, I can see how easily she isolated me, manipulated me, used me. I think. I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t want to admit the things I did.

I’m sorry, you’re right, this isn’t about that. Where was I?

Moira. She wasn’t secretive, not back then. She told everyone about her hypothesis, that with the right mixture, a perfect solution, she could breathe life back into the dead. Perhaps that’s why we forged a friendship. You know I, of course, have long been interested in ways to regenerate tissue, to bring our soldiers back from the brink of death. That is not a new interest, though it has . . . I have become more tame in my own pursuits, after everything.

Moira, you see, saw the body as simply a machine, one which could be manipulated with the right tools. There might be a way, she thought, to continue life beyond “death.” I was intrigued, of course. Looking back, of course you think it ghastly, Jack, but without the benefit of hindsight . . . well, how different  _does_ healing and resuscitation  _really_ sound from reanimation and necromancy?

Her ideas were wild, but fascinating. She was so charismatic, and I was  _so very young_. Forgive me my foolishness, I was a young girl, and I had not yet seen the darkness in the world, in her eyes. I only saw possibility. My own youthful idealism, I suppose.

Other than me, Moira had no one. A pariah. Some could stomach her ideas, but it was well known soon enough that she had already begun experimenting on small animals of various kinds. Mice and rabbits, mostly, as they were easy to acquire for research.

Where others saw horrors, I was shown Moira’s success. For each species she had developed a separate solution; solutions which brought some semblance of motion, some shadow of life. The problem she had found, however, was that what worked on rabbits would not work on mice would not work on frogs. For each species, a different solution was required. If her goal was to be realized, if the resurrection of a human were to come to pass, she required human subjects on which to experiment.

As you pointed out, Moira is not a medical doctor in her own right. She began the course, but she never completed it. She was smart enough, absolutely, too smart for her own good most would say. She thought she was smarter than everyone. When she demanded use of human specimens, access to the cadavers, her request was vehemently denied by none other than the dean himself. You’ve read about him, I’m sure. Harold Winston? He was brilliant, the work he did on the epigenetic causes of—Sorry, yes, well, I believe Moira somewhat idolized him, she told me once it was his position as the dean that caused her to choose which school to attend, I think she felt she had something to prove. But you heard of his passing, I’m sure? And of what happened after he . . .? Well, I’ll get to that later.

It was he who denied Moira use of the cadavers kept for anatomical and surgical study at the university, which soured her to him, most definitely.

Perhaps that is why Moira sought me out, gained my trust and admiration, to gain access to the cadavers. Being a prodigy is not without its perks, you see, and I was lucky enough to secure one of the few coveted lab assistant positions. If that were so, if Moira had orchestrated such a thing from the very beginning, I had no inkling of it then. Don’t look at me like that, Jack, I was only a girl.

We would speak at length about her ideas, her latest tweaks to her concoctions, and how we might go about testing her hypothesis despite the roadblocks she encountered. I  _believed_ in her, and for good reason. I’d seen what she could do with the animals, grotesque though it seems now, and I thought . . . well, I don’t really know what I thought, but certainly I never imagined what might come of it all.

Moira, quite the same, didn’t seem interested in the far-reaching ramifications of her research. I honestly don’t know if she knew what she might do if she ever  _succeeded._ It was a curiosity that seemed to drive her, to know just what she could do. A need for vindication, a need to show us all the world through her eyes.

And I wished to see what she could do as well. And yes, when it comes to  _the vision_ , I say she, and not we, and I hope you will allow me  _that_ , Jack. I will not pretend I am innocent by action, far from it. But we’ve known each other a long time. You know I was free of malice, and I never meant for . . .

I’m getting ahead of myself. You need to know where it all began, to know how it came to . . . whatever all of this was.

Yes, Moira was certain that with the right mixture, a perfect concoction to jump-start the body once more, she could bring complete life back into a subject thought dead. But, as you know, the body begins to decompose the moment death occurs. Delicate cells, cells of the utmost importance, begin to break down. Neurological cells, in particular, degrade at a rapid rate after the moment of death, and this sort of degradation would render Moira’s concoction useless, as it could only reinvigorate cells, not repair damage. I only thank God that we parted ways before my own research came to fruition, lest we have a much greater catastrophe on our hands. If she were able to repair the tissue first . . .

After Winston had prohibited her from continuing her research, Moira reached out to me, her closest and only friend, and I am sorry to say I was quick to offer my assistance. I should have known, of course, you needn’t say it, but foolishness is the right of the young.

Moira needed fresh specimens for her research. To this day I wish to believe she was not serious when she discussed the possibility of exhuming subjects freshly interred, but in hindsight I cannot be certain. It made no matter, for in my eagerness to please my charismatic friend, my  _only friend, Jack_ , I was willing to share the codes for the cadaver storage in exchange for only a promise she would take none that would be easily noticed missing. I’m sure that sounds strange to you, but it was a large school, with many labs and many more students. And it’s true, after so much time, so many bodies, they all began to look the same. If Moira was certain to take only those not already toe-tagged for a particular lab activity, well, it was unlikely anyone would notice them missing.

She employed my help, of course. You saw her when she was here. Tall, yes, but slight. Neither one of us could have taken a subject out alone, I’m sure, but together we managed. Even with the two of us, we were not able to move a body far without arousing suspicion, and we couldn’t work in the dormitory, of course, the smell would have been immense at the very least. Never mind the sounds. Yes,  _the sounds_ , be patient, I’m getting there.

There was a groundskeeper’s shack, beyond the loading dock where the trucks would bring the cadavers donated for study. Off the dock and through a clutch of thick trees. It hadn’t been used in decades, I think, even the equipment put there for storage was covered in rust, forgotten. It was perfect, even more so after all the equipment had been cleared out. No one knew the equipment was there, Moira explained, and so no one would miss it, and the money she received from selling it off to local machinists was put to good use outfitting our new laboratory.

It would never be so grand as the facilities just through the trees, but Moira required very little specialized equipment. A basic chemical laboratory was all we really needed, and if not for the massive table onto which specimens could be placed, surely anyone who happened upon our workshop would think it for making illicit drugs.

You can stop with the faces. I told you before I began that you would see me in a different light after this, but you’re the one who insisted I tell you. You want to know what happened, don’t you? To Gabriel? Then, please, don’t look at me like that. I keep this quiet, and I expect you to do so as well, once I’ve gotten it all out. I’ve already said I am not proud of what I did, and I will say it many more times before the end of this night, I’m sure.

Thank you. I know it’s somewhat beyond understanding, but thank you for trying. Where was I?

Oh yes, the laboratory. As I’ve said, Moira used the proceeds from selling off the old equipment to procure for us the chemical devices and any other apparatus we might need. The table, an old thing covered in rust and God knows what, I found tucked into a basement storage room, and we were able to move it together without notice; if I recall there was a big football match that night, and whenever we heard the crowd roar from the stadium we could take the time to drop the heavy table and rest.

The chemicals themselves were not particularly rare or valuable, and even Moira retained access to such mundane supply closets. She wasn’t expelled, you see, she  _was_ a most brilliant student, of course. The university would have hated to lose a scientist of her caliber. She simply was diverted onto a PhD track when she was barred from research that was wholly medical. I know that look, you’re right, she was not pleased whatsoever. I heard every word of just how displeased she was for several weeks. I suppose it’s why I told her about the groundskeeper’s cabin that I’d found on one of my walks, why I helped her move that table, why I participated in her godforsaken experiments.

I hated seeing someone I cared about suffer. I’m sure you understand, Jack.

The most difficult piece of equipment was the incinerator, and of course the one we worked hardest to get would be the one that never did prove of any use. A small alteration to my assistant’s badge let me pass easily enough as university administration, and when we told the installers that the incinerator was for trash and other non-compostable debris they didn’t ask questions. Why would they? You know me, and you’ve seen Moira. Imagine us younger, and I, at least, smiling as sweetly as I can. What would there be to question?

We had everything we needed, except the subjects, but like I said, there were options within the storage vaults not so far from our hideaway. If the specimen were to come from a hospital not associated with the university it was automatically of no use to us; frequently they had already undergone autopsy, and always they were embalmed or otherwise treated with preservative. Even if this had been done immediately following death, we could not be sure that the chemicals used would not conflict in some manner with Moira’s solution.

Those who passed within the university’s teaching hospital, however, were ideal subjects for our experimentation, and with my access to the morgue it was simple enough to move around a toe tag in order to secure fresh, undamaged specimens. I say undamaged because, as you can imagine, an injury so great as to cause death would render the body useless for rebirth as well. We tried instead to focus on subjects whose cause of death were something more simple; those who died of stroke or myocardial infarction were ideal. And so Moira tasked me with watching the logs and registers for any viable specimen that might come into the school’s stores.

As it happened, it wasn’t long at all after we completed the preparations of our unauthorized laboratory that a subject appeared. A young man in his early twenties. He was dark of hair, and though he was short, he was broad and I’d not be able to bring him myself. I’d told Moira of him, and oh how excited she had been. I felt I’d done well, and she told me as much.

I did not see my friend again until she tapped surreptitiously on the low hatch window of the morgue late into my solitary shift. The window outside opened to the ground, but within the basement it was high-up, short and wide, and I struggled to pass the subject to her. She cursed at me, and she scrambled down through the window to join me, and together we heaved the poor soul out onto the pavement.

If you’re picturing some grotesque scene of Moira O’Deorain and I dragging a corpse through the forest in the middle of a pitch-black night, well, you’re right to do so. You’d think I’d have put an end to it there.  _I’d_ think I’d have put an end to it there. But I imagine it is a strange thing that comes over those who study medicine, those of us who spent our time in the morgues: It is easier to divorce the person from the vessel once the spirit has left it, and I think that I felt only as though I were doing a favor for my friend, ghoulish a favor though it was.

By the light of the lamps in our quiet little laboratory deep in the woods, we heaved the subject to the rusty metal table with significant difficulty, for neither of us possessed much strength to speak of. Moira was ecstatic, I remember well the way she smiled so wickedly at the boy on the table, how happily she readied the solution. It was the chance she’d been waiting for, finally a subject fit for her solution.

We knew, of course, that full reanimation would not be seen that night; for it was a first trial, and those are rarely  _truly_  successful. In fact, we had very little idea of what we might see once Moira had administered her elixir, and I recall a mounting fear which I shared openly with her, a fear that if the young man’s body were to return to some state resembling life, but his mind were somehow left behind, what might happen to him? To us?

Moira had smiled, not the fiendish grin but something softer, something almost kind. I know you think me a fool, Jack, to have trusted her, but there were times when it seemed . . .

The old leather straps were still affixed to the dissection table, and after Moira tightened them around the subject she patted me on the shoulder, but it was a fleeting comfort over an altogether worthless precaution.

I had stepped back, then, as Moira had pulled on her gloves. As wholly invested as I must admit I was, it was  _her_ moment of triumph, if that was what we were about to witness, and I only looked on, transfixed as she filled the syringe with the carefully calculated, perfectly formulated solution. Without ceremony she pushed the entire contents deep into the median cubital vein, and each of us held our breath. I remember the sound of the old-fashioned ticking clock; it had been there when we found the shack, and Moira had wished to keep it.

Time passed so slowly that night, I was afraid to speak lest I drown out any sound our subject might make as he returned to the realm of the living once more; some of the rabbits Moira had used for early solutions had let loose such terrible screams, she had told me. And so I was quiet.

Every minute or so Moira would move the bell of her stethoscope around the subject’s chest, listening intently. Her frown never left, stern and determined, and far from triumphant. For her part, though, Moira had  _never_ been one to admit defeat, and after nearly a full hour had passed, she simply sighed. When I’d asked her if we had failed, she smiled then, and she shook her head. The solution had failed, but we would not. I know you see her as a monster, Jack, even more after what’s happened. And probably more still, after you’ve heard all I have to say. I can’t say you’re wrong. But she had a way . . . an overpowering charisma . . .

Because she would not give up, neither would I, and she bid me to keep watch for any change while she made adjustments to the solution. She thought, it seemed, that there might be more that could be done. I suspect she feared she would not get another specimen for some time, and she wished to make the most of it.

She was flawless in her work, always. To this day I’ve never seen someone so deft, so swift as Moira was that night, preparing her second solution. I was captivated, I should say, and if any change came over our subject before it happened, well, I had not been watching as I had been instructed.

It was so wholly unexpected that I think I screamed, though it would undoubtedly have been drowned out by the very noise that caused it, the most hellish thing ever heard upon this earth. I did not look to the specimen, but turned away in horror, my hands clasped over my ears to drown out the deafening noise. From the table there arose such a diabolic sound, such an unfathomable wail that I had thought the denizens of hell themselves had come calling to our little shack. And perhaps, in a way, they had.

But Moira, too, had been affected. Another series of events that I did not see, but it was later that she explained that she believed she dropped a highly flammable reagent onto her kerosene lamp. I do not know if it was the resulting fire or the horrific cacophony arising from the table that drove Moira from the cabin, dragging me violently with her through the underbrush.

It was not until we had neared the morgue once more that the full force hit. The explosion rocking the ground beneath my feet was, I think, what finally pulled me from my shock. I would presume that the fire from Moira’s reagent, a small thing by itself, had found its way to our small store of our more volatile, combustible agents. I cannot be sure; no one could, for when the investigators made their way into the rubble the following day it was found that the old ground keeper’s shack had been burned wholly beyond recognition, and for that we were thankful, lest there be more investigation into just what had been happening in our makeshift laboratory.

Far more disturbing, at least to the two of us, was the second piece of news published that same day, something most people took little notice of: A break-in, crude and violent, as though some beast had tried to force its way in to the very laboratory in which I was meant to be working that night. It had made it difficult to sleep, and in the time that followed it was common that I would catch Moira looking over her shoulder, and rarely could she stand to be alone when night fell.


	2. The Plague-Daemon

After all of that, certainly any reasonable person would end such mad pursuits. Moira O’Deorain was not such a person, and I must admit that I reacted in much a similar vein. Consider that the first trial on a human had, to some extent, been successful. While the results had startled and terrified me, and I could see that they left my friend shaken as well, we had _done it._ A human being, once dead, had been made to produce an utterance which, though terrible, was wholly supportive of Moira’s hypothesis. We could not let it alone, not after what we had been witness to.

However, with the explosion so near the morgue and the attempt at unlawful entry on that very night, Moira deemed it prudent that we take some respite from our morbid course of study. Truth be told, I think the whole affair shook her more than she let on, and she probably wished some time to collect herself.

No longer pursuing Moira’s gruesome fascination with such fervor, we each found ourselves successful in our more wholesome academic work of the following few years. True, Moira confided in me that she had returned once more to experimenting on smaller mammalian species within her dormitory, but without a freestanding laboratory and incinerator she no longer felt equipped to handle specimens of a higher order. All the same, as we progressed diligently through our courses the faculty tolerated her and the complaints surrounding her extracurricular activities, if only just.

Moira had seemed unbothered; if any thought molested her it was not of the students who avoided her, nor of the faculty whom she increasingly saw as adversarial to her work. No, it was a concern much less defined, and one not entirely seated in this world, nor grounded in reason as one might expect from such a scientific mind. Moira had, on more than one occasion, shared with me that she felt as though eyes were upon her when she was most certainly alone, that she was being followed, even hunted, in her dreams and in the darkest of her waking moments. I often wonder if those times would have been easier on my friend had we known the fate of our first human specimen.

Even plagued by such unease, Moira would not be dissuaded from her work, and not long after the calamitous first human trial, Moira reported that she was quite certain what had been the primary cause of our failure to fully revive our subject: Put simply, the specimen had not been _fresh enough._ True, the young man had passed not hours before injecting Moira’s concoction, but as I’ve told you already, the most sensitive cells begin rapid degradation almost immediately. He had simply been gone from this world too long, but with a subject not so decomposed, Moira assured me, we could find success.

As it were, a large selection of subjects would soon present itself, though we were woefully unable to make use of it. You recall, Jack, the year that airborne _staphylococcus aureus_ gained resistance to both vancomycin and methicillin? Oh, my apologies. That is to say, you remember the year of the infectious outbreak which could not be cured by most antibiotics?

Of course you remember, everyone remembers. How could one forget the sights, the _smells,_ of that year? As you might imagine, even those not yet licensed, such as myself, or those whose studies only tangentially related to the treatment of disease, such as Moira, were employed without delay, or indeed without a personal say in the matter, to address the emerging public health crisis. It was near the end of Moira’s time at the university, I recall she was scheduled to defend her dissertation in the coming August. No, of course she could not divulge just what morbid experimentation had gone on in the groundskeeper’s shack, nor could it be put to words just what we had _heard_ that horrific night, but with her repeated animal studies she had managed to create her manuscript.

I believe she was eager to be clear of the university. Dean Winston, having previously put an end to Moira’s more unsavory practices and having completely denied any access to human specimens not surreptitiously gained via her acquaintanceship with myself, had become a sore spot for Moira, and I think she was anxious to crawl from under his thumb. As a matter of fact, I am quite confident Moira developed somewhat of an animosity toward Dr. Winston by the end of it all, feeling her ideas were irrationally spurned by the close-minded, overly cautious faculty, of which Winston was head. When not discussing her latest formulation with me, it was not infrequent that Moira related fantastical ideations of revenge toward the dean. Nothing violent, no, Moira was not a violent per—

Well, Moira did not have any plan to cause undue harm to the dean, I can say _that_ at least. No, her imaginings were those typical of a passionate youth who felt they had been illogically wronged, she simply craved vindication, I think.

Despite all that I had been party to by way of our friendship and despite her growing animosity toward the dean, of whom I and most others were quite fond, I continued to follow Moira. I did so with a zeal which I am now quite ashamed to admit, and she welcomed my companionship, as well as my assistance. I was entering the medical school in the following fall, and I had hoped to spend the summer preparing for the more rigorous work ahead. However, this was not to be, as the usual summer courses were suspended in light of the outbreak, and all faculty and students at the medical school and its related colleges were put to the task of fighting the infectious scourge.

While each and every doctor, soon-to-be-doctor, or organic chemistry washout did their very best to stem the tide, we were woefully unprepared to deal with a plague so freshly virulent, and the death toll rose by the day, and soon by the hour. The university’s morgue, by which I was still employed as an assistant, quickly became overburdened by the unprocessed remains of those who fell to the disease.

Undoubtedly the circumstances in which we found ourselves vexed Moira terribly, that a steady supply of fresh subjects existed for her dubious experimentation, and yet we were far too busy fighting the plague which brought them about to make any progress on Moira’s own life’s work. For Moira this heightened the exhaustion which lay heavy upon the both of us, and she brooded terribly over her inability to utilize the growing stock.

She was able, with my help of course, to secure a single specimen for use; a strong and capable man before infection had brought him low and struck him down. With the utmost precaution we were able to make our way, the two of us and our subject, into one of the anatomy labs in the pitch of night. It was atypical for anyone to venture into the school so late, and all the more were we able to avoid detection because the staff was wholly preoccupied with the health interests of the surrounding community.

On that night we were able to coax from our subject some movement. Soon after the injection of Moira’s most recent formula he had opened both of his eyes, and he wore an expression so rational, yet so devoid of the higher thoughts or emotions one might expect. It was not long after he had opened his eyes that he fell again into the grip of death, and no efforts on our part and no further injections could bring him to us once more. That specimen we had been able to incinerate, and I am thankful for it now. As cause for our partial failure, Moira had claimed, as she had with our dark young man, that the body had lacked a requisite freshness.

There was little time, and less energy still, for continued experimentation amidst the height of the epidemic. Myself, Moira, and all others labored tirelessly throughout that summer. Dean Winston, altruistic to his very last breath, busied himself with the most virulent of cases, those others would not touch, and those he was unwilling to thrust on the inexperienced youth such as myself. His indefatigable efforts earned him admiration and respect, not only among his peers and students, but those in the disease-ridden community came to see him as a sort of saint, a moniker which did not dull Moira’s disdain for this man, or her own begrudging admiration either. A strange sort of hero worship and loathing together combined to form a most twisted vision of the man in Moira’s eyes.

However, it was not Moira’s turbulent view and the dreams of revenge and triumph they spawned, but his own benevolence and care which in the end was his undoing. So few escaped the grip of disease, and we medics did ourselves few favors by working so doggedly to combat the infectious menace. Dr. Winston had shielded his young charges from the most malignant cases, but in doing so found himself in a battle which even a healthful man in the prime of his life could not win.

While death had visited the doorstep of every home that summer, it was Dr. Winston’s passing which brought most mourners to tears, for he had been a hero in life as well as in death. Students, faculty, and community members alike all paid tribute to such a great man, and I recall even Moira had seemed so lost in thought, so very far away, as the dean was laid to rest hastily on the morning immediately after his passing. I realize now that perhaps she had not been mourning so soulfully afterward, but instead considering . . .

All the same, Moira did join myself and many of our peers from the college and medical school in lamenting his passing at the local pub. We were ever so busy with the disastrous scourge, and even before the town fell under its shadow, my studiousness had kept me from the bars, though I had been able to drink if I so wished for nearly a year by that point. But if ever there was a reason to raise one’s first glass, I had thought it was one such as that, and all of us drank to the memory of our beloved dean.

Some of our companions parted with nods toward the work they must do or a need for sleep, but still more seemed to shy away from us, as they so often did. It was no wonder, for we had not hours before interred our beloved dean, and there sat Moira, once again availing us with her notorious theories of just how fleeting death might truly be, if only she were allowed to work. Perhaps it was the nature of her hypothesis that turned them away, or that she grumbled and groused over the very man we had set out to mourn. For whatever reason, as night fell on us it was, as it always seemed to be, only my friend and myself who remained.

Once the others had left, however, Moira had entreated me to stay, bidding me to join her in seeing Dean Winston off in a more fitting fashion than had been attended earlier in the afternoon. I was well into my cups by then, I’m certain, and I’ll remind you, Jack, I had not been drinking before, let alone to the degree to which Moira seemed accustomed. And so I imagine I was as drunk as I was curious. I am thankful, though, that I recall very little of what happened after I followed Moira into the darkness.

I only know what I was told by others regarding the events that unfolded over the course of the night, that some time after two in the morning Moira and I were seen returning to her dormitory room. I imagine it was notable to the few awake at that hour not only because we must have been quite intoxicated, but also because we had between us, I’ve been told, a man who had seemed much worse for wear than either of us, for he could not stand nor walk without the both of us supporting him.

We had retired to Moira’s room with our guest, and you can lower that eyebrow now, Jack, it was nothing of _that_ sort of night. I assure you, neither of us were interested in . . . why am I even discussing this with you?

 _Moving on._ No, no, the events of that night were much more horrific, I’m certain, for only a single hour had passed when there came such a terrible din that the whole of Moira’s floor was roused. Absolute discord, I was told after the fact; shouting of the both of us, shattering glass and a terrible racket, and silence.

By the time the dorm matron had been called to open the door, our “guest” had vanished, and onlookers simply found Moira and myself, scratched and beaten, bloody and muddy, and wholly unconscious amid the broken equipment of Moira’s small makeshift laboratory. It was not the only glass that had shattered, and while our condition was poor, responders marveled at what must have become of our guest after their tremendous leap from the third-story window. Several ran down to give aid to the stranger, only to find him, thankfully, vanished.

When asked about the identity of our companion, we had both stated resolutely that we had made the acquaintanceship of a traveling stranger, and that as we were both still in fairly good health and spirits, we saw no reason for law enforcement to become involved.

It need not have been said, for all too soon the police were embroiled in something far more serious than a drunken dormitory brawl. While the community was still firmly in the grips of the infectious plague, another horror descended quickly upon us. On the very night that Moira and I were _preoccupied,_ a local groundskeeper at the very same cemetery in which the dean had been interred became the victim of a most gruesome attack.

The man had been so viciously savaged, torn in such a primal and animalistic fashion that many indeed doubted whether it was in fact a human being at all which had done such a thing, and law enforcement saw fit to look for a beast as eagerly as they sought a man. Blood had led from what had once been the night worker’s body, toward a storage tomb for the dead not yet lain to rest. Whatever manner of creature had committed the act, the police surmised, had spent some time there, as evidenced by a pool of thick blood, but the creature had then departed for a nearby wooded area, where its monstrous, bloody trail was woefully lost to its pursuers in the underbrush.

The horror continued into the next night, and fear mounted among those left alive in the town. Where they had once feared the touch of infection, now doors were locked and windows shuttered for fear of the ripping, tearing claws of some unknown _thing_ which haunted the shadows at the corners of one’s eye.

Some claimed to have seen it, the beast which prowled along the dark deserted streets that summer night. A hulking creature, one which none could say with certainty was a man or any sort of known beast. Large, ghostly pale, and horrific to behold; some described a great, hairless ape, while others a monster of a man. All, though, whispered, their voices tremulous.

And it was little wonder, for on the night following the death of the grounds keeper, six more persons were maimed beyond recognition. The wretched, bloody remains left little question of how they had died, though there remained uncertainty toward what had become of some missing portions of each. This was answered easily, though in a horrific revelation, when the telltale signs of gnashing teeth were found on the flesh of the victims. Whatever creature had befallen these poor souls, it had done so with a _hunger._ Soon only one question remained to the investigators: What manner of ghastly thing had been unleashed upon the world?

That question, too, was soon answered. Well, to some extent, anyway. Unwilling to suffer a similar night of terror, the able-bodied in the town set out a search net that, soon enough, cornered the _creature_ in an abandoned house not far from the university. The resulting fracas, in which several rounds were fired by the police involved in the apprehension of the thing, was short and thankfully without casualty. The creature, however, suffered a superficial wound, and once securely chained and manacled, it was rushed away.

The horror visited upon the town by the atrocities of the creature, however, were rivaled by what was found when it had been taken into custody. Once it had been apprehended and sedated it was sent not to the university’s own hospital, but to the medical facilities at a nearby asylum, for once it had been cleaned, there was no longer any question. What it could be called now, yes, was questionable indeed, but it was clear to all who saw it that it had, at some point, been a man.

To this disgust was added a second shock, for those in the town who had seen the thing before it had been sent away would later report that the _thing_ bore a haunting resemblance to the late, great Dean Harold Winston, interred only days prior.

Frightening, gut-wrenching, and altogether abhorrent as this revelation would be to many in the community, I was far more disturbed by Moira’s own revelation, grumbled past her bruised lips and swollen cheeks. That, once again, it had not been _fresh enough._

 


	3. Six Shots by Moonlight

As I have told you, it was not long after that horrific slaying of several in our community that Moira was set to mount her final defense. The ongoing battle against the virulent _staph_ strain did delay it several months, and Moira remained until nearly Christmas of that year. Dissertation defended and with the outbreak successfully curbed, many suspected Moira O’Deorain would readily flee the community which she felt had persecuted both herself and her research.

I knew better, however. I had become virtually indispensable to Moira by that time. I not only lent significant aid to her during experiments, but it was also through me she hoped to retain access to the university’s morgue, if a new laboratory could be created for our use.

Also, I dare say that in the time since our first human experiment, Moira had become quite fearful of being alone. Yes, the creature that had been apprehended months previously was safely locked away in the asylum, but we each lacked concrete knowledge of the whereabouts of the ghoulish thing we had first heaved through the small window of the morgue, that subject which had finally screamed out so suddenly with all the fury of the damned. Perhaps that is why she would rarely sleep alone, and even with me she was prone to restless fits.

No, Moira would not leave, not with work yet to be done. As it were, I was no longer bound by my young age to live in the campus dormitory, and the _staph_ epidemic had left many homes within the town wanting for tenants. Moira secured for us a small home far from any other occupied dwelling, one which would be suitable not only as a place to live, but far more importantly, as a place to work.

It possessed the requisite amount of room, and far more importantly, it afforded significant privacy, with entrances to the cellar both in the yard and in the home. It was there, beneath the small sitting room, that we set about creating our new laboratory.

Yes, I did so willingly, and no, I won’t feign ignorance about what might have been lurking nearby due to Moira’s morbid practices. You must remember, though, Jack, that the _goal_ was, in my eyes, a truly righteous one. It is absolutely true that what I had seen and heard, and in fact what I had done, had shaken me even then. But scientific progress is not easily made, and rarely is it a clean and neat endeavor. If something so marvelous, so _good,_ as resurrection could be made possible through our efforts?

Yes, yes, I will stop trying to defend myself. There’s no use to it, in the end, for you will see things . . . well, they get no better, and they will get a fair bit worse before it is all over. I daresay indefensible.

As I was saying, while I was to continue my medical studies, Moira had completed her courses and was set into the world. As one might imagine, there is little work for a newly minted geneticist in a town brimming with academics, particularly a geneticist so vehemently ostracized by those very academics.

Between her coursework and her experience in the recent epidemic, Moira possessed enough skill in medicine to secure employment as a doctor of sorts, working with those who, for some reason or another, could not seek traditional medical care from a properly licensed physician. Young women much too good and proper to ever need an abortion, shady individuals likely injured during the commission of some equally shady act, men who burned and stung in ways they’d rather not tell their wives . . . there were plenty of patients seeking a doctor as keenly insistent on privacy as themselves.

Thusly were Moira’s days occupied, while I spent my time at the medical school, but both of our attentions were wholly focused on a return to our extracurricular pursuits. By this time, and thanks in no small part to the unfortunate passing of several of my fellow students to _staph_ the previous summer, I had found myself as the lead lab assistant within the university’s morgue, which afforded me both greater pay _and_ greater access to the morgue itself. Not only did I enjoy less oversight, but also I was granted use of several other entrances to the building, and it was by virtue of this promotion that I secured for Moira many more specimens for further research.

Each of us worked zealously through the nights on Moira’s concoctions. The largest hurdle was that for any given specimen a highly specialized formula was required. Height, weight, age, sex, body composition, body _de_ composition, all had to be taken into account, though of course we took great pains to obtain only recently passed subjects.

Between my ability to supply specimens and the fervor with which Moira developed and administered her experimental solutions, we soon found ourselves with an altogether new problem, for we had no means of destroying what was left behind. Due to our small, private residence as well as a fear we might be recognizable to the installing crew, we thought it wise not to have an incinerator placed in our home. A second fear, as I’m sure you can imagine, surrounded a second great explosion should things go awry as they had those years before.

In light of this shortcoming, we had need to return to the more rudimentary disposal method of burial, and I found that this possibility was at the forefront of Moira’s mind when she had selected the home, for if one were to exit the cellar they would only need travel a quiet, deserted back alley and short footpath until they were wholly enclosed in the thick forest which bordered the town. Moira thought it prudent that she not be the one to purchase the shovels, picks, and wheelbarrow, and so under cover of an amateur gardener I made such purchases for the two of us.

I can honestly say I’ve never been in such fine physical shape in my life, and even Moira showed some bit of a physique on her lean frame after disposing of a few of our subjects. Yes, yes, morbid of me to speak so flippantly of the results of such a dismal task, but I must remind you once more, Jack, that I did not see it as such a ghastly chore at the time. It was simply a necessary effect of our highly scientific pursuits. We had, after all, not harmed any of our subjects. We simply were putting them to use, and if the disposal of used materials seemed horrific, it was easier to stomach in light of what I hoped to accomplish in our work.

In such a way could I justify even the most gruesome tasks put to me, and from my vantage point Moira seemed even less bothered by it all than I. It was with fearsome dedication that she worked, ever seeking to harness the power she felt was so near, certain that when all was said and done she would have her vindication. However, I do believe something plagued her. It was not guilt or disgust over our ongoing endeavor that seemed to needle at her, but a lurking fear, a certainty that something watched her as we made our way through the dark woods to dispose of subjects, that a hunter stalked her if ever she left home in the evening unaccompanied by myself.

Sometimes, when her nightly fits would wake me, I would insist that that cannibalistic creature that had left us beaten and bloody was safely locked away in the asylum, but it was with a fearful tremor that she would remind me in turn of a burned out groundskeeper’s shack, and of the uncertain disposition of our first human subject.

While Moira’s fears were powerful, they paled in comparison to the all-consuming need to perfect her solution, and on that subject we did make some progress in that year. The first specimen I obtained for us was an outright failure, it neither moved nor made a sound, and Moira cursed herself for a mistake made when mixing the concoction. It was quickly disposed of in the woods, and we found better luck with subsequent specimens. One had opened its eyes, and though it did not speak, its lips twitched as though it had a mind to do so. One simply shivered violently, and yet another sat rigidly from the table, but moved no further and collapsed once more into death.

Moira made great strides, or so she said she felt, with these specimens, but always the cause of failure remained: Decomposition. If I had somehow miraculously obtained a subject at the exact moment of its death, I must still have waited until it had been processed into the morgue, and wait still longer until nightfall when I could safely remove the subject from campus. Time passed, too much time.

And so, when the opportunity arose to obtain a much more recently deceased specimen, Moira and I jumped at the chance. It was not by way of the university hospital, but instead we were clandestinely summoned by one of Moira’s less reputable clients.

You understand, I’m sure, that I knew very little about Moira’s clientele, and despite how little I knew, I chose never to ask. Heading out, I knew only that someone was gravely injured. Rarely did I assist with Moira’s work among the living, yet on this night she insisted I join her, and she had seemed quite jovial to have me along. Even then I realized both my presence and Moira’s persistently pleasant demeanor were undoubtedly due to her hope of obtaining a fresh specimen that evening. Moira would not be disappointed.

With little knowledge of what we would find, she and I set out with bags in hand. None walked with us, and as the evening turned to night even fewer others were seen walking the quiet streets. With this semblance of privacy, Moira whispered to me in earnest, deeming it necessary to provide me with at least some knowledge of the man we were to meet.

A skilled fighter, she had told me. No, not a soldier, a martial artist of sorts. All sorts, in fact, before an incident which had cost him his arm. No, no, nothing Moira had been involved in, I assure you. It had happened some years before, and by the time Moira became involved he had had a replacement made, but it was . . . unruly. A cybernetic prosthetic, much more powerful than what it had replaced.

The devastation it could create, that was why he had specifically sought Moira out. He required a physician, or someone to approximate one, to clean up the mess that arm had left behind, and to do so without prying into how such a mess was made. He had not lost his interest in combat sports, you understand, and at times his opponents would get more than they had signed up for. Much more.

I had seen no others save what we headed for that night, but Moira had imparted quietly to me as we walked tales of the men she had seen in the previous months. _Calibrations,_ as the client had called them, could be much more devastating than intended. From the survivors, neither he nor Moira feared trouble. The bouts were held surreptitiously, and for an opponent to raise issue with Moira’s client they’d need also to admit their own wrong-doing. He only feared what might become of him if one of the men who fell in the ring did not get up again.

And so it fell to Moira to be sure that anyone who would stagger away from the match could reach a distance at least far enough to alleviate any suspicion which might otherwise be cast on the man who had called on us that night.

I had not before seen the extent of ruin this man could do, and even Moira had seemed taken aback by the sheer extent of the injuries seen in the patient we were called to attend to. He was much smaller than our employer, thankfully so. The prosthetic, cybernetic fist of Moira’s acquaintance had bruised and beaten the entire right side of his body into nearly pulpy mess, and it became clear very quickly that he would not stand again, and that he would need to be disposed of.

It was a task for which Moira was all too happy to volunteer the both of us, and I’ll say again that I suspect she had thought such a situation might occur. While I would tell you today that I do not know, had you asked me on that night if Moira had _hoped_ that the man would die, I’d have balked at such a question to my friend’s character. After all, I’ll remind you that while our actions may seem gruesome to some, we had not done actual harm to any living person. And, at least in so far as I was concerned, our aims were of the noblest sort.

You know, there was a time, actually that very night, that I had groused over the nasty work of disposing of our subjects in the woods, and Moira had reminded me that it is difficult to do any great science without getting one’s hands dirty. The laugh she had let loose then, in the pitch-black night as we stood with shovels and picks and a freshly dead man . . . it still chills me, as it had then. But I had shaken it off then, nerves was all it had been. But I’m no longer nervous, and I can still hear that laugh.

Yes, yes, we buried him, and so you can surmise that our experiment was unsuccessful despite the excessive _freshness_ of this specimen. We had redressed him and taken him back to our home by way of back alleys and the less inhabited neighborhoods. Each of us looked over our shoulder and shied from the streetlights, for though we had brought a man back to Moira’s dormitory in much the same fashion the summer before, we greatly feared we might be approached by a passing Good Samaritan, or worse, the police.

But once we had him into the cellar, under the buzzing fluorescent lights, stripped again and primed for injection, the fear of the police gave way to excitement. Never before had we obtained a subject so recently deceased. This, at long last, could have been a glorious display of what Moira’s solution could accomplish.

Though as you have determined, it was not so. Perhaps it was some internal injury, one of those which had led him to our cellar laboratory, which had interfered with the work. Whatever it was, the man did not stir. He did not rise up, he did not make a sound, he did not even shiver and shudder as previous specimens brought from the university had done.

And so when we had placed him into the wheelbarrow with the picks and shovels, our moods were quite sour. We lacked the wonderful rush that some new breakthrough, which we had been expecting we might see, was meant to bring, and instead it was a fear of the police that gripped us. If news that the illegal fights had finally led to a death got out, or if anyone had seen us carrying the man between us . . . We were not the most inconspicuous of individuals, what with Moira’s reputation and our friendship, one which perplexed most who knew me, and we both very much feared that there might be a knock at our door in due time.

Even when the man had been placed into the shallow pit and covered over with dirt, twigs, and leaves, we did not breathe easy, and Moira’s laughter had still rung in my ears when we each fell into a restless sleep that night.

The next day would bring nothing better for Moira, and when I had returned from my courses she had been nearly manic.  I’d been certain the police had come calling, but she had been wholly busy with a new disaster, linked neither to our work nor to the man we had taken into the woods the night prior.

A child was missing. _Don’t even look at me like that,_ I told you we had nothing to do with it. Well. That is to say—

Let me continue. I will spare you the melodramatic details, for they serve no purpose. Suffice it to say, some years previously a man of some high esteem had fathered with his mistress a son. That boy, now some six years old or so, had wandered off that morning, as young boys are apt to do at times, and his mother had become positively frantic with worry. As she had been certain that her lover’s wife had taken the child as some form of revenge, she had intended to confront the woman regarding her missing son.

This was where Moira had been called, for the man had less interest in the whereabouts of his son than in protecting himself from the revelation of the affair. He had entreated Moira to calm the woman before she did something drastic. And, while she was able to silence the woman . . . it did not go as intended. A reaction, unexpected and entirely accidental, Moira had told me. A mistake of an unlicensed would-be physician who had never completed her education, and to this day I believe that she did not intend the woman to die.

After all, if she had, I’m certain I’d have been brought along to make use of the body. Morbid as it is, _that_ is how I know that Moira did not mean to kill the woman.

But despite the best efforts to save her patient, the woman did pass from this world that evening, at the hands of Moira and before the eyes of her lover. The man, having not only witnessed the passing of his mistress but undoubtedly at least somewhat effected by the unknown status of their son, had become so enraged at Moira’s failure that he had lunged at her in a most violent manner.

She had escaped, of course, and had made her way home where I found her that evening, trembling still, though she had calmed significantly by the time she had told me all of the goings on. The boy, it seemed, was still missing, and she feared that the man might again come for her if he should be found in some poor state.

With an eye to the local news, it was brought to our attention that the woman’s passing had gone mostly unheeded in light of the missing child. In hopes of finding the boy, some talked of forming parties to search the woods surrounding the town, and this wore at the nerves of both of us terribly.

Worry over the possible retribution from the man, of the discovery of our spent specimens, and the lurking fear of police inquiry regarding the death of the man in the fight compounded to leave Moira even more restless than myself, and we did not retire that evening until well past midnight, though little work was done on our researches.

I may not have been implicated in the death of the woman, of course, but by my acquaintanceship with Moira it was unlikely the man would see me as an innocent party if he should come calling to our shared home. However, it was the fear of the police that worried me most, for though I maintain even now, to you, Jack, that I had never willingly and knowingly caused harm to anyone, well . . . you can see quite clearly how dirty my hands had already become in Moira’s mess.

Because of this nagging worry, my sleep was fitful, and it was nearer to dawn than dusk when I was roused from what semblance of sleep I had achieved by the sound of some manner of visitor at our back door. It wasn’t a knock, or a bang, or a voice. A . . . rummaging, really. Rattling, scratching.

Moira, equally plagued by worries, woke to the noise as well, and in the moonlight I watched her fetch from the nightstand an old-fashioned revolver. I’d not known she had it, and it wasn’t until I asked later that she had told me it had been given to her by one of her less reputable clients. I hesitate to know what _other_ deeds the revolver had done. But as it was so old that it did not need to be registered, Moira had taken it, and she took it in hand as she motioned me out of bed.

She’d told me we had best both go down, in case it was the police, or perhaps a patient in need of aide. But despite this, I know she thought more of the vengeful man than the other possibilities, for what good would a revolver do against the police? Moira may not have been a model citizen, but even she, I think, would not have opened fire on law enforcement.

And so we descended the stairs of our small home, slowly and trembling, the both of us, Moira first, and I crept along after her. The sound which had roused the both of us had not ceased, but nor had it grown louder. Never had I ever felt such a fear, for not only did I have no way of knowing what was beyond our back door, but each possibility was as horrific as any other.

Moira had stopped then, a meter from the door, and I can still see the glint of the moonlight off the revolver she half-raised at the rattling door. I do not know if she considered calling out, asking who was scratching at our back door at such an hour, but neither of us made a sound. Perhaps her voice was as lost as my own, because she only nodded at me and gave a small motion with the gun.

Have you ever heard one of those old-fashioned revolvers fired, Jack? I suppose you have, haven’t you? I hadn’t, not those heavy, massive pieces with the long barrels. It still seems a miracle to this day that no one had been alerted by the blasts, but I suppose that isolation _was_ why Moira had picked this particular home.

No, it wasn’t the police, but _nor_ was it the grieving man. I had not seen who— _what_ it was until after the smoke had cleared, for it was with a suddenness I did not even think possible that, as the door was flung open, Moira fired every single round from the revolver into the thing on the doorstep.

I may not be the angelic saint you thought me to be before I began, Jack, but I’m no monster. I had no idea just _what_ sort of damage Moira had done, or to whom she had done it to, but I could not fight my instinct to rush to the aide of what was no doubt a wounded person. They had fallen back, the impact of each round catching the silhouette in the moonlight, but by the time I had pushed down the steps to where it came to lay I could see to my great horror what had come calling that night.

As I have said, it was not a policeman, I thank God, nor a man. Well, not anymore it wasn’t, though it was something approximating a man, with the right side of his body beaten and bloody, caked in dirt and leaves. But it was not the familiar face, twisted and primal, that caused me to fall back with such fright and disgust that Moira needed catch me. It was the object gripped in death between his bloody teeth: a thin white, shiny limb seeming to glow in the moonlight, made identifiable only because it still had at its end a tiny, child’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always thought Part III was the weakest of HW-R, but I've done my best with it.

**Author's Note:**

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End file.
